


The Finite Heart

by Magical_Destiny



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, M/M, angsty ruminations on time and other worlds, featuring a Madancy pairing so strange I didn't even put it in the tags, teacups and time and the rules of disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8552527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magical_Destiny/pseuds/Magical_Destiny
Summary: In one universe, Hannibal wonders whether Will’s beliefs about other worlds are correct. In another, Kaecilius peers between universes and wonders if there is a place where he is happy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this might be the weirdest thing I've ever written. But I was struck by the similarity of some of Kaecilius' arguments to some of Hannibal's thoughts on the nature of time and I just had to write SOMETHING. Also, I have originated (as far as I can tell) the weirdest Madancy pairing ever. Kaecilius and...well. You'll see. I hope you enjoy this inter-dimensional angstfest!

The silver sheet of rain is very like a veil. 

Hannibal wipes the raindrops from his face, pulls the coat around his shoulders to cover the bloodstains on his shirt. The fabric of both garments is sodden and offers no protection from the pressing cold. 

When he reaches the end of his street, he lets himself look back, just once. The glow of the windows shimmers warm against the steady rain, light striking against a veil that is only partially translucent — and entirely impenetrable. Even if he turned back, ran down the sidewalk and back into the house, he could never breach the wall of what he and Will have both done. Will and Jack will still be stained with betrayal; they will all still be dying. Abigail bleeding on the floor.

Will bleeding beside her. 

He imagines, just for a moment, time reversing. Running backward as the blood and rain retreats from his shirt and hands, the blade moves away from Abigail’s neck, Will’s face is smoothed of the lines of pain and sorrow. They are in the kitchen, and Will is crying only because Abigail is alive and not because everything is broken. 

He blinks and the vision is gone. Time went on without him, just as it always does. He’s wetter and colder than a moment before; his breath mists and dissipates, disappearing like his visions of some other world. 

Will once told him about his belief in other universes. Hannibal coaxed frank discussions of life and death from him in their conversations many times.

_And what do you believe, Dr. Lecter?_

Will had spoken in a teasing tone, with his unique twist of sarcasm and curiosity. He’d spoken with trust at that long ago time. Hannibal hadn’t told him the whole truth, of course. The memory twists in his gut, as though he’s the one who’s been slashed open and left to bleed. 

He hadn’t told Will that other universes are meaningless, just as the dry world is meaningless to a creature of the sea. There is no reason to focus on what can’t be touched. 

But here, now, with Will’s voice in his ears and Will’s blood on his hands, the veil of rain flutters and thins — and Hannibal almost imagines that he can see the other side. Almost imagines that if he put out his hand with intent, he might be able to touch the membrane between worlds and tear it free. He might be able to find some other world where Will has not betrayed him. 

Where he is not stained with Will’s blood and with Abigail’s. 

Hannibal regularly transcends his body and retreats into his mind. But even palaces in the mind have walls, and Hannibal is limited by the scope of his memories and feelings and experiences. Transcending the mind entirely — it's probably the answer to every riddle he’s ever puzzled over. He wonders about flowing away from this stream of time and finding Will somewhere else, in a universe without blood and betrayal. Finding a universe without time at all.

For just a moment, the air feels thick and heavy around him, like a garment waiting to be torn off and tossed aside. 

But the rain drips cold down his face, and the air grows thin again. Full of nothing but certainty — no possibility at all. Nothing but the sure fact that Abigail is dead and Will may follow her. Soon, Hannibal might live in a universe with no Will Graham at all, even if he exists in every other. For a torturous, lingering moment, Hannibal wishes more than anything to be in one of those. 

The red-blue flash of a police car slashes a path through the rain. It no longer looks like a solid veil, fluttering and ready to be pushed aside. 

Hannibal turns away. 

He watches the chaotic ripples surrounding each of his footsteps and wonders if it’s true that every choice creates a new reality, branching out from the moment of decision. Each step creating a universe, in which a ripple of water affects something far greater. 

He wonders which sequence of steps might have taken him somewhere else. 

He goes inside himself, barring his doors against the cold and the rain and most of all against the searing ache in his chest. Finally, he closes the door even on his wondering. It doesn’t matter if there are other universes. He is trapped in this one. And in this universe, a great many things are impossible. 

~~~

Death, Kaecilius is sure, is merely another dimension. 

There are countless dimensions, stretching away into infinity like a room of mirrors. Reflections and inversions, some nearly identical and some violently different. There are places, he knows, where Time doesn’t exist at all. 

In _his_ dimension, he feels Time like a weight, slowing his search for answers by requiring him to eat and sleep. Aging his body despite the power he wields. Some things even magic cannot fight. (Although he watches the Ancient One’s smooth face and listens to tales of her immortality…and he wonders.)

He reads every book in every language about other worlds. But it is impossible to travel between most universes, and the ones that can be reached by the ancient arts are forbidden by the Ancient One herself. 

“It does not do to focus on worlds beyond your reach, Kaecilius,” she says, her voice dispassionate and her face blank. She is lucky to have the cool refuge of indifference; Kaecilius can’t hide from his anguish. The sound of Adria’s weeping is as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. He sees her, sees their son, every time he closes his eyes. He stares at the air around him as though he could rip through it and find them on the other side. Perhaps he could. 

If the Ancient One would allow it. 

He clenches his fists, sets his jaw, and nods his acquiescence to her rebuke, despite the flames of helpless rage that chew at him. Her robes whisper against the stone when she turns away. 

Helpless, always helpless. He couldn’t stop his family’s death and he can’t find them now. Infinite universes, infinite possibilities, perhaps even infinite life, and he can have none of it. 

Perception is easier to conceal than action, so Kaecilius practices spells of vision. The energy of other worlds can be shaped and focused like a lens, offering a blurred and distant glimpse of other worlds. Surely he can find the one that holds the dead. There must be such a place. Matter is never destroyed, it only changes forms. It isn’t possible that Adria once existed and now doesn’t. She is somewhere. Their son is somewhere. If it takes every moment of his life on this wretched planet in this wretched universe, he’ll find them.

He peers into countless universes, swift glimpses through a tiny peephole in reality. Sometimes he sees emptiness, sometimes worlds that are barely recognizable. 

Sometimes, he sees himself. Millions of variations, some with different names, all with different destinies.

Once, he sees himself with a dying man and girl — like an inverted reflection of his family. A husband and daughter instead of a wife and son. He almost feels cold rain against his face and tearing agony in his chest before he sweeps the vision away and remembers that he is not this strange, distorted man. He is Kaecilius, standing alone in the silent, fire-lit halls of Kamar-Taj. 

Husband and daughter, wife and son. Perhaps all universes are warped reflections of each other. He wonders if his misery and loss ever inverts to happiness in these other realities. Or perhaps he's destined to lose everything in all of them. He grits his teeth and thinks it would be better to summon the Dark Dimension itself. 

He throws up his hands and the world splits into glass walls around him. The Mirror Dimension. He is more profoundly alone even than a moment before. Nothing he does here will affect anyone but himself. The Mirror Dimension, he thinks, is a truer representation of the world than the plane of physical reality. Nothing lands or has impact. He can pace and scream and nothing breaks. He passes through the mirror plane and does not register. 

The same is true of his home dimension, but the reactions of other human beings lend credence to the overwhelming illusion of mutual significance. 

On a whim, he tangles his fingers through the energy humming around him; it glows warm and golden as he compresses and stretches it, creating one more window. But this time, he doesn’t look into another universe. This time, he focuses on the energy crackling in his hands and asks a question in his mind. 

_Is there a place where I am happy?_

The golden light stretched between his hands spreads like a puddle of shimmering water across the air. At first it mirrors back only Kaecilius’ drawn face and tight jaw. Then it flashes white, shining almost blindingly. There are snatches of shadow, wavering and indistinct, that nearly shape themselves into human forms. The swirl of light and dark makes and unmakes itself for so long that Kaecilius is ready to release the energy and release this entire undertaking…

The shadows coalesce into a face. The image is blurred and runny around the edges, as though it had been painted in watercolors that weren’t quite dry. It’s a beautiful, languid young man with dark curling hair and blue eyes. His smile is at once joyful and sad. It tugs at Kaecilius’ mind like a dream all but forgotten. He watches, curious. 

He doesn’t watch for long. The nameless man with the light in his smile and the shadows in his eyes dies before the vision ends. Alone in a darkened street, with no witness but the stars. The vision flashes white again.

Of course, Kaecilius thinks. Whoever the man was, he died before they could meet. He hasn’t seen a place where he _is_ happy, only a place where he might have been. It’s unspeakably cruel, in the way that only Time can be.

He isn’t sure why he expected any different. 

When the swirling energy begins to shape itself into Adria’s bright smile on their wedding day, he rips his hands apart with enough force to rend the energy in two before it soaks back into the loose particles that make up the universe. 

He wonders if Time is his enemy across all dimensions. He sees it sometimes, smiling at him, thin lips stretched over pointed teeth. Predatory and waiting. Scenting his mortality on the wind, watching the sands of the hourglass run out.

_Alone_ , it whispers to him. _You are alone._

Perhaps, despite the vast differences between every version of himself, there is indeed a constant. Perhaps this is always true. 

The glass walls of the Mirror Dimension show him a bent and untouchable version of the physical world. A translucent and impenetrable barrier, unbreakable as Time itself. Just one of many dimensions, all equally unreachable. He knows from long experience that the agony in his chest will shift into anger, but it begins, as always, as a hopeless emptiness. 

The ache of facing infinite worlds with a finite heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> ...so I definitely paired Kaecilius with Buddy Wittenborn from _Evening_. It got stuck in my brain, okay, don't judge me, LOL. I don't much care for the movie _Evening_ , but I loved Hugh Dancy's character and he just has such a SAD story. So I guess I made it worse by adding a could-have-been soulmate element to his premature death. 
> 
> Kill me. 
> 
> I don't even know why I jumped on this instead of on the Kaecilius/Grigg train that's been gaining steam! It's probably because I haven't seen _The Jane Austen Book Club_ , lol. The mighty door of fanfic fate swings on flimsy hinges. ;) 
> 
> The name of Kaecilius' deceased wife (and the whole premise of his lost wife and son) was taken from the prequel comic to the movie _Doctor Strange._
> 
> Thoughts? I hope you enjoyed my latest bizarre crossover! I should have known I was in trouble when I wrote my Spacedogs/Star Wars crossover. The Hannibal fandom has done things to my brain. ~~It ate it.~~


End file.
